Submitted by Sandie Griego on Mon, 06/16/2014 - 22:43
Tomorrow I will go to my one month check up after having cataract surgery. I started having problems with my right eye in January. After a trip to the emergency room, a retina doctor, my regular eye doctor, back to the retina doctor, a cornea specialist, and yet another retina doctor, I was scheduled for surgery. My hubby took great care of me and made sure I didn't do anything I shouldn't for three weeks. I could not read, get on my computer, Ipad, phone, or sew. I could watch TV and not much more. I had a difficult time convincing my hubby how miserable I was. I was siting in a recliner, with my cat asleep in my lap, in an air conditioned room, watching non-stop TV and movies. You see my point. Now that I am one month out, I feel so behind on everything. By the way, my eyes are great. No glasses or contacts needed for the first time since I was 16.
I fully intended to write a blog post before I had the surgery to show what I was working on. All of those items are still at the same point.
I finally got all the paper piecing done on "In a Pickle". I have all of the background pieces cut but have not started putting all the pieces together. I started a scrappy hexagon quilt as something to keep my hands busy when we traveled. I saw a quilt on Facebook that had incorporated a star into the pattern. I decide to use that design. This is what it will look like - one day.
The Sewing Guild quilt group started looking at the "Storm at Sea" book. Since I already had fabric to work with, I plan to make the pink/purple one, The second layout is a some day quilt.
One of the things that really bothered me about my recuperation time was not being able to do yard work. My sweet hubby mowed the yard while I gritted my teeth. All of the details that I normally take care of, did not happen. The vegetable garden did get planted but the drip irrigation needed some help. Some of my garden has done well and some has not. I think it is all a water distribution problem. First the good pictures.
Bell peppers and tomatoes.
The spaghetti squash is much larger than it looks in this picture. The picture of the right is okra. I normally can grow okra with the best of them. I got my first bloom today. The leaves look curly. I don't know if this is from a lack of water. It did get knocked over during a recent storm but I stood them back up and they have done OK. I think more water is the answer.
My yellow squash and zucchini are producing enough for me to give some away to friends.
Now for the bad.
I have never had much luck with green beans, which is a shame since my hubby loves them. The right picture is watermelon. I did great with watermelon in the past until my dog decided it was the perfect place to sleep in the vines. This year - not so much. Again, I think my drip system failed me or I did not do it right. On the other hand, my blue berry bushes are still alive. I harvest three blueberries today.
I hope my bushes are loaded with blueberries next year.
Now for the yard. Grass has grown into the area around my raised bed for my vegetable garden. I am going to have to deal with that as the grass is starting to creep inside the beds. My flower bed at the end of the patio never got planted so grew up in weeds and grass.
Do you see the area behind our fence? I have been mowing it to keep the weeds down and encourage grass to grow. We have this wonderful walking path that runs behind our house. That area was at one time, grown up taller than the fence in weeds. We had an awful time keeping the weeds out of our grass. Our HOA does mow it but not often enough for me to keep the weeds from going to seed and blowing in our yard. It is like mowing an additional back yard. I have made progress. It is probably about 50% grass now.
The other side of the yard has the tree and wonderful blooming plants.
See the hole in the left side of the tree. That was from the early ice storm we had last year. We lost a big limb.
On the left is my passion vine taking over the wisteria and trellis in the flower bed. Notice the grass growing into the bed (grrr). The right picture is my plamaria. It is leafing out nicely - if I can keep the rabbits out of the pot.
We have wonderful wildlife that comes to visit our yard. We have rabbits, squirrels, and a large variety of birds. Our birds make such a big mess at the bottom of the feeder that the squirrels don't feel the need to climb up the feeder. There is plenty on the ground. The rabbits have learned that there is a free meal at the bottom of the feeder. Unfortunately, the rabbits dig borrows to have their babies, and do damage to our grass. Some of the holes are not this visable and we find it when we mow the yard - and twist our ancle. 
My weed eater went to the hospital today. They had a backlog of three weeks. I hope in a month, all the grass will be out of my garden and flower beds, and the grass will be neatly trimmed around the fences and bird feeder. What am I saying? I hope the grass is still green in a month!